Tuesdays with Morrie

You know you’ve read a good book, when you reach the end of it and you know that it hasn’t finished with you.

That’s what I wrote in my journal, when I finished reading ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom.  It was definitely the best book that I read last year.

I read it on the train to London at the start of our holiday in July, and as I was reading it I had in mind two older men who have had a significant influence in my life.

It’s an autobiographical account of a man re-establishing his relationship with his former college professor – when he realises that the professor is terminally ill.

It’s a book about learning what is important in life :

And which are the important questions?

“As I see it, they have to do with love, responsibility, spirituality, awareness.  And if I were healthy today, those would still be my issues.  They should have been all along.”

Two days after I finished reading it, we received a phone call to tell us that my Dad was in hospital, and as the days and weeks passed I realised that the real poignancy of this book for me was about my relationship with the old man that I was closest to.  I really feel that I was able to change as a result of reading Tuesdays with Morrie – which I can’t say about many other books.

I learned to draw close to my Dad in the short period that remained of his life, to have conversations with him that I would otherwise have shied away form, to get involved in his personal care, to enjoy just sitting in silence with him, and I think that it helped me to deal with his death when it came.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

Funnily enough, I feel that this book still hasn’t finished with me.  It’s a book that I will read again, but not just yet.

Have any books affected you in a similar way?